Ingram's Flat Spot On: Danica gaining Mo'

Ingram's Flat Spot On
by Jonathan Ingram
DANICA GAINING MO'
The reason I like Danica Patrick is because she's talented, ambitious,
gutsy and different. She's like a savvy quarterback in the NFL, a
brilliant point guard in the NBA or a showboat...

Ingram's Flat Spot Onby Jonathan Ingram

DANICA GAINING MO'

The reason I like Danica Patrick is because she's talented, ambitious,
gutsy and different. She's like a savvy quarterback in the NFL, a
brilliant point guard in the NBA or a showboat Major League slugger.
Patrick makes things happen that wouldn't ordinarily take place.

Danica Patrick, Andretti Green Racing.

Photo by Andy Sallee.

This week for example, I checked out the SI swimsuit issue online for
the first time in my 57 years.

But seriously, folks, I stopped at the home page where Patrick looks to
be playing Cleopatra to see if it was too cheesy for words. Almost.

According to the beloved Internet at many locations, several very
important careers now depend on Danica Patrick's whereabouts in 2010,
including those of IRL founder Tony George, IMG exec George Pyne (whose
company is handling her contract) and NASCAR's Brian France.

At least Ken Anderson, founder of a fledgling American Formula One team,
no longer has to answer to the petit Patrick. She's taken herself out of
the running for F-1. It's beyond her comfort zone.

From what can be gleaned from the swimsuit issue, there's not much out
of her comfort zone. Patrick certainly enjoys leveraging her assets as a
skilled, attractive female race car driver. As one of her biographers,
I can tell you she has improved as a model from her early days of just
trying to get employed with photo layouts in places like FHM magazine.

Can you imagine what life would be like were Danica built like, say,
Linda Vaughn? And if she ran around like Alex Rodriguez?

Jeez. We'd be back in the days of Joe Namath and Bachelor's III.

It's bad enough she made a standard racing joke about it's not cheating
if you don't get caught in reference to a question about illegal,
performance enhancing drugs. Oops. Now Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S.
Anti-Doping Agency, is calling in addition to everybody in the known
racing world who has a sponsor idea or available racing car.

Otherwise, Danica is like the girl next door who likes to wear a small
bathing suit at the local swimming club. It raises a few eyebrows and
heartbeats, but otherwise it's good clean, flirtatious fun. She is
dedicated to life with her husband and family of father, mother and
sister. And to winning races.

Danica Patrick, Andretti-Green Racing.

Photo by Michael C. Johnson.

In retrospect, Patrick has come a long way from just three years ago,
when one pundit at Indy said it was the first time Danica could be
accused of having a bad chassis.

Patrick's current contract pursuit raises a lot of hackles in NASCAR
land because she has enough presence and skill to suggest a possible
career driving stock cars. If the rumors posing as reportage are close
to accurate -- it's like an entourage chasing Jeff Gordon with tripping
and shouting everywhere -- she's being shopped all over the garage.

More good clean fun, because for once NASCAR is not top of the charts
in the realm of U.S. racing. Instead, the bandying by journalists of
the possibility of Danica going NASCAR has led to the perspective that
the stock car guys need her to get out of a recent slump. If so, the
slump is worse than anything fallen baseball slugger Andruw Jones has
experienced and NASCAR might as well stop checking its pulse.

Patrick does make things happen. Three decades ago, the hierarchy as
NASCAR was going everything possible to put hurdles in front of Janet
Guthrie, lest the world think driving a stock car was as easy as driving
an Indy car.

The correlary to the current "NASCAR needs her" suggestion is that
IndyCar will thrive if she stays. And, indeed it would benefit, because
Patrick is not a novelty, rather an unusual amalgamation of a solid
personality, good looking young woman and skilled race car driver now
coming into her own.

Behind the curtain, one imagines that manufacturers are the source of
the biggest possible paycheck for Patrick. If so, then forget NASCAR,
where the last one to get a sudden checking account boost from Detroit
for quite some time was Tony Stewart. What about Toyota, you say?
There's likely no room at the inn at Joe Gibbs Racing for those who pose
at SI.com. According to the world of Danica as we know it, the choice is
either cut to the front or drop out of line all together.

In IndyCar, there's active talk of more than one manufacturer joining
Honda, a manufacturer where Patrick is a mainstay in advertising. Will
Honda pony up to maintain that association? If new manufacturers are on
the horizon, which teams will go where?

Personally, I'd like to see a contract that allows Patrick to do the
Daytona 500, the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24-hour in the same season.
It's been a while since that's happened. Hell, I can't think of somebody
who has done it other than A.J. Foyt in 1967 with the backing of Ford.

Like I say, Patrick makes things happen in ways that wouldn't happen
otherwise. What a refreshing change for motor racing.